Tag: debate

In June I represented Utrecht University in a debate on game education. It wasn’t so much as a debate but more of a discussion, and in my case mainly giving a long overdue introduction to the game education at the Utrecht University.

It turns out there is quite a lot of confusion about the difference between university level students and applied higher education students. I was surprised by the gap: the audience didn’t seem to know much about the university, while in my background at the university I have never seen an explanation what makes the university different from applied higher education. It was very challenging to bridge this gap in one evening, and I think I succeeded only partially.

Another major source of confusion lies in the role of university internships. Where higher level education internships are usually about the intern joining the regular working process, university level internships are about doing research. Research seems to be interpreted as doing fundamental theoretical research which is only usable in companies working on state of the art technology. Understandably, this interpretation scares away a lot of companies from university level internships. In reality, university internships are often about applied research. If a game studio has a technical problem or question, this is usually sufficient for a university level internship. Most game studios have yet to recognize these technical problems and questions as university internship opportunities.